The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  “Come,” he said, and I followed him inside.

  Instead of horses, the stalls held bodies, all in different stages of decomposition, some had turned green, others black as tar, all stacked right on top of each other. We stopped at stall number fifteen. Flies landed on my eyelids and on my lips; no amount of swatting kept them away.

  “Traitors are sent here for my wife’s special tea, at the Reich’s request,” he said. “I’m showing you so that you know our commitment. I’ve made many scientific discoveries in this barn in the name of country.”

  I looked around, hiding my horrified face with my dress collar. Each stall had a chart, documenting the different stages of rot, and how long they’d been dead. “You will report favorably about us, won’t you, fräulein?” He reached into a horse trough without any water and pulled out a lumpy bag with a long shoulder strap. “We do what the Reich says…”

  I nodded, and he stepped toward me, getting nearer, tightening his grip around his machete. I patted my leg for the gun, trying to grab it through the fabric of my dress, but he was only handing me the bag.

  I fell against a wood post.

  He opened a trapdoor under some hay with a staircase that disappeared into a dark underground lair. “Good day.” He walked down the stairs, and the trapdoor slammed shut over top of him, but I was already running out of the barn.

  I coughed and gagged around the corner, trying to catch my breath, but I only wanted to run, not stop and inspect the bag. I slung it over my shoulder and ran toward the house to collect the others. I fell through the door, stumbling over my own feet, gasping, one hand over my nose, the other holding the bag tightly, only to find Gilda bent over and staring at Red and Roxy real close as they sat shaking like two scared cats.

  Gail told the woman to back up, get out of their faces. “They’re mute I told you!” she said, which only seemed to intrigue Gilda more.

  Gilda pulled Red’s kerchief from her hair. “Ooh, a ginger!” she said, touching Red’s hair, and feeling it in her fingertips.

  I patted the bag near my waist, motioning with my other hand for them to follow me, and Roxy and Red shot up from their seats.

  “Don’t leave! Not yet!” Gilda crumpled to the floor, pouting with clenched fists as we shuffled out of the room. “He always ruins everything,” she cried.

  “Go,” Red whispered, while Roxy pushed me from behind. “Go… go…”

  I threw the front door open, stopping cold. Two blonde girls walked up the gravel road toward the butcher’s house with their arms unmoving by their sides, dressed in blue with long, long braids. “Mother of God.” I turned around sharply.

  “The werewolves.” I gulped. “They’re here!”

  18

  KIT

  I’d never been speechless before. Truly speechless, where my tongue and brain felt dumb and numb. I closed the door immediately. Gilda was in the other room, out of earshot and out of sight, but we heard her singing her own name and clinking teacups together. “Gilda this and Gilda that, la la la la…”

  We looked through the one window that wasn’t covered in dirt and watched the pair walk slowly, methodically, like toy soldiers in the day, right up onto the butcher’s property. Their blonde braids made them look even more menacing and evil, lying flat against their breasts. “What do we do now?” I said, just as Gilda burst into a crying fit in the other room. My heart hummed.

  “I know what to do!” Gail exclaimed, her voice commanding, resolute, and she had all three of us listening. “Take Gilda into the pasture. A tea party.” The werewolves walked closer, marching, marching, close enough to hear us if the door had been open. Gail turned to me. “Don’t come back in here until I say so.”

  “What are you going to do?” Roxy said. “I’m worried.”

  “Don’t be.” Gail’s eyes were set on the two girls walking up the walk. She held her wounded arm, wrapping her fingers around it delicately, gently. “Go.”

  With the girls about to step up on the front porch, we had no choice but to do what she said. We rushed back into the other room to get Gilda, and her eyes lit up. Roxy and Red grabbed the teapot and cups. I took the tablecloth. “You’re back!” she said all breathy, and truth be truth she looked sincerely overjoyed.

  “Yes!” I said. “We can’t leave without a proper tea party.”

  Gilda stood bolt upright. “You can’t? Oh, this is wonderful.” She saw Roxy and Gail scoot out the back door. “But why are we going outside?”

  I pushed Gilda outside with me. “Because we’re having a garden tea party,” I said, and she all but clapped. “Doesn’t that sound lovely?” The door clicked shut behind me and I caught a full breath of the putrid outside air, holding back vomit.

  Roxy and Red turned around, not knowing where we should go, and I pointed toward one of the cows, which I thought would be far enough away to catch a decent breath. “Oh, I’m so glad you girls stayed,” she said. “Such beautiful girls too.” Gilda clasped her hands in front of her body as she walked, and sometimes skipped. “Tea party, tea party…”

  “Oh yes, we’ll have so much fun!” I grimaced when she wasn’t looking, and walked on toward the cow lying in the pasture, following Roxy and Red. Damn thing still hadn’t moved, and I wondered how it could stay so still. Back in Grant County, our cows never stayed still; they were always grazing. Sometimes we had to send our dog out to round them up.

  Roxy stopped suddenly in the grass and Red turned around, frantically pointing with her head to the cow. Then I noticed what they’d already figured out.

  The butcher’s cows weren’t cows, but heaps of black canvas made to look like cows at a distance. Camouflage. Roxy lifted one end of the canvas up, only to drop it immediately after exposing the long-barrel gun underneath—the exact kind we saw abandoned on the battlefields in France, but this one looked shiny and brand new, ready to be fired. “Gilda. The cows… they are… they are…” The tablecloth slipped from my fingers into the grass.

  “Guns. Big guns!” She laughed that strange laugh, in between a cry and a squeal, only to press her fingers to her lips. “Do what the Reich says… do what the Reich says…” She took the tablecloth from the ground and spread it out onto the grass before motioning for the teapot and cups.

  I took Red by the arm and all three of us walked far enough away to talk plainly without Gilda hearing us. “Jesus, Kit,” Red whispered. “The guns.” She looked urgently over the pasture as if the Wehrmacht was about to march in any minute and use them, then to the sky looking for planes.

  “There’s something else.” I exhaled, thinking of a delicate way to tell them about what the butcher had been doing, but there wasn’t a way. “A hundred bodies are decomposing in the barn.” Their faces instantly contorted, both disbelieving and horrified. “All in different stages.”

  If someone wanted to know what sudden shock looked like I would say it looked exactly like Roxy’s face at that moment. White, drawn cheeks, and a wave of weakness that buckled her knees. “But… but… but…” she babbled. “Why? How?”

  I turned my back to Gilda, if only because I couldn’t watch her setting out the tea any longer, smiling, pretending the day was wonderful. “He said he does it for the Reich. Crazy Gilda serves them poisoned tea and then they become, well… his experiments.”

  “They poison everything here!” Roxy said. “I’m scared.” She moved to catch a glance of Gilda over my shoulder, her eyes growing.

  “What are you girls doing?” Gilda snapped. “Teatime. Right now. Understand?”

  I closed my eyes, hearing Gilda’s voice.

  The barn door was closed, but who knew how long the butcher would be out of the way, busy in his secret lair where he did God knows what on those bodies. And Gilda, she was the weathervane that got zapped over and over and over again; I didn’t know what she was going to do or say next. The werewolf girls were still in the house with Gail.

  “We need to run, Kit,” Roxy said. “This gal’s crackers. You hear
me? And this place is creepy.” She rubbed her arms from an unexpected shiver while trying to swat at the flies landing on her nose. “We need to start running and fast.”

  “Without Gail?” I said, but I knew she didn’t want to leave without her either.

  Red pointed to my waist. “We have the package, right? I say you and Roxy head to the hill, we meet under the tree, and I’ll go get Gail. Werewolves or not.” Red folded her arms, and I could tell it was hard for her not to know what was going on in the house.

  “No, Red. This isn’t your plan. It’s Gail’s and we have to trust her,” I said. “We have to wait.”

  “I’m worried about her,” Roxy said, and she chewed on her nails, which I hadn’t seen her do since we bivouacked out of Utah Beach. “She’s still green, even if she did get shot.”

  Roxy had me doubting myself for a second. From the moment I’d met Gail she’d been delicate, squeamish with the little things. The bullet in her arm toughened her up a bit; I saw it in her eyes when Red stitched her up in the cornfield. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about her in that house with those werewolves.

  “No… we can’t, all right?” I had to listen to my own words, and trust she knew what she was doing. “Neither of you know German. You have to trust her and me.”

  Roxy closed her eyes, resigning herself to what she knew we had to do.

  “Now, let’s get on with this tea, all right?” I said. “Remember, not a word from you two. Who knows what this nut will do if she hears you speaking English.”

  We walked back over to Gilda. “Where’s the other one?” she said.

  “What other one?” I said, knowing full well she meant Gail. Roxy and Red sat down gingerly on the tablecloth in the grass, picking up the teacups while Gilda lowered hers.

  “The other girl,” Gilda said.

  I threw my palm to my forehead. “Oh! The girl…” I laughed with a little smile, still not answering her and hoping she’d forget, but the look in her pointed eyes said otherwise. “She’s cleaning up the spilled tea,” I said, finally thinking up a lie. “That’s all.” I swallowed when she looked at me blankly, as if she didn’t understand. “As a favor for the hospitality. She knows how much it stressed you, so she’s cleaning up the front room.” I picked up my teacup and clinked the edges with Red and Roxy for a toast. I pretended to drink. “Mmm…” I said, eyes twinkling, “delicious.”

  Gilda seemed satisfied with the story, and smoothed her dress over her dirty legs, giggling and giggling. She noticed the bag near my waist as I swatted flies from it, while slipping her hand into her pocket, again playing with something I couldn’t see, something bulky, humming a little tune before going back to her tea.

  I looked over to the house, fully expecting to see no movement, but in fact saw silhouettes pass by the window, behind the dirt and grime. I couldn’t tell who was who, or if Gail needed help. My stomach did a little whirl, and I hid my fading smile by keeping the cup pressed against my lips.

  “Gilda,” I said. “How long have you lived on the farm?”

  It was an honest question. Something I would have asked if we were having a proper tea, a girls’ talk, but when her eyes slowly shifted upward and locked with mine, I realized it was the wrong question to ask.

  “Why?” Her voice wisped through the tiny slit between her lips.

  Red and Roxy’s eyes swung like pendulums between me and Gilda. Even if you didn’t know German, you could tell I had struck a nerve with her.

  I scooted up and swatted at some flies near my face. “It is so peaceful out here!” I tried to sound cheery. “You must have many restful nights.” I closed my eyes immediately, realizing I said the absolutely wrong thing. Peaceful nights? How could someone have a peaceful night out here with all those corpses?

  Gilda hung her head down, her lips bathing in the tea, lapping it up like a dog, and I looked at Red, who’d stiffened straight up.

  “And what about these?” I pointed to the heaps of camouflage, but that was another mistake, I thought. “You must feel secure.”

  She laughed that crazy laugh again, half shriek half giggles, only to compose herself like a lady, sitting up real tall and looking a little prissy. A fat-lipped smile spread on her face. “Boom.” Her eyebrows rose.

  Red and Roxy lowered their cups, looking into the sky. You didn’t have to know German to know what she meant by “boom.”

  Gilda slipped her hand into her pocket again, only this time I heard the tink of metal. When she saw me watching her, she pulled her hand out to twist grass with her finger. I thought about her life on the farm, how she must have been normal at one time, hadn’t she? At one point she was someone’s baby, someone’s daughter, and a bride. She wiped her lips with her arm before bursting into a cry, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, and she looked genuinely sad and discouraged. She looked human.

  “Gilda…” I said, my voice dropping, “what made you like this?”

  She dug her palms into her eyes, wiping every last tear away and all the moisture from her cheeks. “The Reich did this to me,” she said, clearly, sanely. She reached back into her pocket only this time she pulled out what she’d been playing with, and I was surprised to see it was a toy train car. The red paint had been chipped from many years of play, and the wheels were rusted from being left outside one too many times. “My boy,” she said. “His legs didn’t work right, bent the wrong way. But he was mine. The Reich took him away.”

  I gasped, realizing what she meant, and it somehow rationalized what she did to the Nazis who were sent to her for tea, traitors or not, they were her enemy. Red and Roxy stared at me, and I felt my face drain of all its color. I tried swallowing the lump in my throat, thinking of the Reich taking a crippled child away from his mother. “I’m… I’m sorry,” I said.

  I reached out to touch her hand, but she sprung up and ran into the pasture and into some trees where she disappeared.

  “What now?” Red asked.

  “The Reich killed her son. Took him away because he was crippled. That’s what made her go crazy.”

  “Oh, she’s crazy, let me tell ya,” Roxy said. “Can we go see about Gail now?”

  I twisted all the way around in the grass and stared at the house, waiting, holding the bag close to my body near my waist, looking for a sign. Come on, Gail…

  “I’m worried,” Red said, rubbing her hands together. “I’m going in.” She stood up.

  “No, Red,” I said, jumping up to stop her. “You can’t take control of everything all the time. We have to trust her—”

  A crash came from inside the kitchen. Red grabbed both my arms. “I told you, I told you…”

  We ran through the grass into the house, pushing open the door and throwing ourselves inside. “Gail—”

  Gail slowly turned toward us just as the two werewolf girls tumbled onto the floor and lay motionless at her feet.

  19

  KIT

  Gail held Gilda’s special blue teapot in her good hand. Roxy clamped her hand over her mouth. Not one of us said anything, and I don’t think any of us were breathing, especially the two werewolf girls. Their bodies lay in a twisted mangle, braids flopped over their heads, faces to the floor, and their legs unnaturally crisscrossed.

  “That’s for the poisoned bullet.” Gail set the teapot down and turned toward us, first looking at me and then to Red. “Now we can leave,” she said, and in a strange twist of fate, the poisoned had become the poisoner.

  I couldn’t move. Red pushed Roxy toward the door, reaching for me next, but I stood still and stunned, with my eyes on the dead girls lying on Gilda’s floor. “Go,” Red whispered, pushing me. “Kit…”

  I finally looked up, and she hugged me quickly.

  “Come on,” Red said, “before someone sees us.”

  Gilda would come back from her hiding spot looking for us and would find the dead girls in our place. She’d be sad we’d left, but perhaps happy at what she found on her floor—two
dead girls from the secret resistance the Reich had planned. Nobody would know what happened to them. Not even their parents. Their skin looked bright as white paper, but soft as dough—perfectly German—and young. Teenagers I suspected, trained to kill our boys.

  Red took me by the hand and I followed her out of the house. I glanced over my shoulder as I crested the door, seeing their blonde heads lying on the floor, and now Gilda out the screen door in the pasture making her way to the back porch.

  We ran through the grass and up the small hill to the tree where we had started. The farm looked quiet from the top of the hill. The butcher still hadn’t come out of the barn, and it was now strange to view his farm this way, at a lovely distance, knowing the gruesome crimes that had been committed under that roof, and in that barn.

  “I never want to see this place again,” I said.

  “You won’t have to,” Red said. “None of us will. And we never have to talk about it either. Got it?” She folded up the map after a quick look and tucked it back into her leg bandage.

  I adjusted the bag over my shoulder. “Got it,” I said, but I was sure she meant that more for Gail, who’d turned away from us in thought.

  Roxy flicked her chin at the bag. “Do we get to peek inside?”

  I reached for the buckle when Red told me to stop.

  “Not here,” she said, but then clarified. “Not yet. Let’s get some more cover. Never know who might be watching.”

  We found a ravine with some rocks that provided a little cover. We tucked ourselves inside, and in the closed space I could really smell the odor coming from the bag, which had transferred to my palm from patting the fabric. A lone fly buzzed near my hand.

  I unlatched the buckle. The thought crossed my mind that the butcher had fooled us and gave me reichsmarks instead, which was as useless as Confederate cash. The girls watched me reach for the zipper next, holding my breath, flicking my eyes up at Red one last time before closing them completely. My brother—the entire fate of the POWs depended on if we were successful.